


Playing Chicken With Divinity

by EternalEclipse



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, I do not know what Shinji's canon bankai was and I do not care, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Lots Of That One, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, also the hōgyoku should be a character with how many times i had to write that word in this story, this is not that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalEclipse/pseuds/EternalEclipse
Summary: The battle at the Fake Karakura Town comes to a close, and Shinji can't be satisfied that this is where it all ends, with half his friends dead and Aizen winning despite their best efforts. But he does have one final ace up his sleeve--a small-scale distortion of reality. Put more simply, he can travel in time to the beginning of the battle.With the opportunity to do it again, will Shinji be able beat Aizen, preferably with his friends still intact, or will he get cut in half first? And would that be a better fate than the strange bargains he must make to succeed?
Relationships: Hirako Shinji/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Playing Chicken With Divinity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mister_Fox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mister_Fox/gifts).



> Hi Fox! I hope this brings you joy :D

There had been a good moment when Shinji had been sure he was dead. Aizen had no reason to pull his blows, and the only reason he’d survived long enough for his hollow regeneration to kick in was that Aizen just didn’t care enough to finish the job. And didn’t that rankle.

The fight was—well, not _quite_ over, with Urahara’s reiatsu going off in truly spectacular fashion in the same vicinity as Aizen’s and Ichigo’s, but his part in it was done. So were the rest of the Vizards. Hiyori was dead—without special powers, not even a hollow tended to survive being cut in half. Rose and Love were tangled in a heap he didn’t think was moving. Hachi was by Lisa, both alive but neither doing well. As for Kensei and Mashiro—he hadn’t seen them since early on in the battle, and he couldn’t sense them now. That was probably a bad thing, even if they still lived.

The Shinigami weren’t doing much better. Although they had taken down most of Aizen’s arrancar, the battlefield was scattered with the dead and dying. There was still too much reiatsu in the air for the average Shinigami, but surely they could have taken along the Fourth’s lieutenant, and maybe some of their upper seats? It wasn’t like Aizen would have cared to kill them.

Aizen’s reiatsu flared like a star being born, frying the edges of his senses. It felt like he’d gone into bankai, or resurrection, or something, but not quite like anything he’d felt before. A bead of unease trickled down Shinji’s back as he tried to push himself up. He needed to see.

This time, he managed. Aizen released his power again, sending Yoruichi flying. Shinji saw her catch herself even as Aizen opened up a senkaimon and strolled through. Clearly, Urahara had lost his gambit. Well, he was in good company for once.

Shinji bared his teeth, face looking not unlike his mask, and pulled out his sword. Aizen hadn’t won yet. He might not be Ichigo’s Inoue, but he still had one final card to play. 

“Bankai.” Shinji poured every bit of energy and determination he had left into one final technique. And, hope beyond hope, Sakanade responded to his wishes, compressing herself into a small blade, which Shinji turned against himself, turning the world along with it.

* * *

_Loop One_

Time was a lot more finicky than Space, and Shinji would be the first to admit he hadn’t had much of a chance to use his Bankai in many years. While they were in exile, it would have drawn too much attention, and before the Gotei had restricted him. A stealthy bankai that wasn’t obviously suited for battle tended to not be anyone’s priority, and most of the point of his was that no one would notice the distortion. After the third Captain’s meeting he’d redone to prank with impunity, he’d learned that having to survive the meetings multiple times each was punishment enough.

Of course, that might have contributed to how out of sorts Shinji felt at finding himself back in their warehouse before the battle, working on figuring out just where Karakura had disappeared to. Of course, now he knew the answer.

It would have been useful to have gone back further, but there was no way to fix that now. He hadn’t exactly been prepared to use this in this way. He justified giving himself a moment to drink in the reiatsu-senses of his friends, powerful and whole, before stepping out to join them. Hiyori….she was still alive here. He would make sure that she stayed that way.

He breathed in deeply, feeling as he did Lisa watching him closely. He grinned at her, and she nodded back. “Everyone ready?” he asked.

“Let’s go kick Aizen’s bald ass!” Hiyori yelled, and everyone followed with their own agreements. A more natural grin wound its way across Shinji’s face. Yeah, they were going to kick Aizen’s ass.

“But how do you know it’s bald?” Mashiro interrupted, as they flash-stepped towards the domed fake town. “Have you looked?”

“Oi!” Hiyori growled back, even as Mashiro turned to Kensei, with the innocent look Shinji was never quite sure wasn’t real and asked him the same question.

Shinji stumbled slightly at the sight of the dome. No one mentioned it, and no one questioned the way he kept going in a specific direction even though in theory he didn’t know anything more than they did. Sasakibe Chōjirō was still where he’d been, in a hidden de-facto command center for the group that encircled the town. The first time around, he hadn’t stuck around long enough to figure out what their purpose was, but this time his sharp eyes didn’t miss the Kidō Corps uniforms, with a number of seated officers scattered around them. The question then was, were they trying to keep others out, or Aizen and his in? And why hadn’t they been able to do anything the first time?

It didn’t take long for Sasakibe to decide to let them in, between being old enough to have been around when they had all been kicked out of the Soul Society, their claim of having a bone to pick with Aizen, and their claim to being Ichigo’s allies.

The battlefield opened out before them. Aizen had beaten them there, but there wasn’t really much in the way of fighting. It looked like a couple of arrancar Shinji didn’t recognize were lined up to attack a number of lieutenants and seated officers protecting a series of kidō pillars. Even knowing that it’d probably be fine without their intervention, it seemed like a good way to make their entrance, and one of their points.

“Want to make an entrance, or get right into it?” Shinji asked the group, eyeing Lisa. She glanced over at the assembled group of captains—and yes, that was Kyouraku—but didn’t say anything.

“If they’re not expecting us, they won’t be able to defend against us,” Rose pointed out, shielding his eyes as he glanced over at the assembled arrancar. “Pity Aizen’s spoken for at the moment.”

Hiyori grabbed her mask. “Let’s go.” Her voice, tinged with hollow static, was tight with certainty. Shinji pulled on his mask as well.

What followed was a mess of battle. The first time around, most of the fights had only seemed to have begun shortly before they’d arrived. Shinji was not particularly surprised that the lieutenants and captains, excepting those around the pillars, were more interested in sparring and feeling out their opponents than jumping to higher releases. Aizen’s army seemed to be fine with it, which was only slightly strange—it didn’t surprise him if Aizen had some fantasy of making Hueco Mundo like Soul Society, or if Tōsen did. If anything surprised him, it was how little thought was given to the supposedly important barriers on either side. What was he missing there?

Not that he had much time to ponder it. The downside of escalating a battle was the single-minded focus required. The Vizards definitely got one up on their opponents. But they didn’t choose their opponents particularly well. If the Gotei hadn’t decided that they were on the same side, Shinji wasn’t sure they’d have survived that first strike.

Rose and Love were in fine shape to start, having begun this time with arrancar he didn’t recognize, cutting down one of the less powerful ones even as he watched. Mashiro, true to form, aimed a kick at the ugliest enemy she could find. Unfortunately for her, she chose the espada that had taken Hachi’s hand the last time. It was luck that it couldn’t react fast enough to catch her. Kensei didn’t fare as well, with their enemy forewarned, and whatever Hachi was doing to keep him alive didn’t look great. Lisa set herself up against a group of three fracción, and Hiyori helped her. They didn’t strike true, but they did get the ball rolling. Shinji found himself in an unenviable position of fending off Halibel, who had moved to protect her fracción. Sakanade held against the first blow, and the second, before the Shinigami jumped in to help.

Shinji took himself out of the direct line of fire fast enough once the kid captain had taken over for him, looking over the battlefield. With Aizen still contained, it was probably worth stretching the boundary limits of his shikai. A couple of the arrancar might be smart enough to figure it out, especially if he limited the effects to maximize the range, but—ah, there we go—it was battle, and split seconds could spell your doom.

There was a single, glorious moment when Shinji was sure that this would do it, when the arrancar started to fall quicker and quicker and not get back up. And then Wonderweiss appeared, and Aizen took back control of the battlefield. Shinji could feel Kyōka Suigetsu pushing back Sakanade’s influence more strongly than he ever had before. Even pulling his hollow mask back on wasn’t enough of a help.

Not a single Shinigami fell to the arrancar, but it only took ninety seconds for Shinji to figure out that they were starting to fall to other Shinigami, and fast. Soi Fon took out her own lieutenant, though he put up a good fight for an Omaeda. Komamura managed the same. Kensei was taken out by the boy with his tattoo on his face, a circumstance Aizen was quick to reveal.

Shinji survived by the dint of having not been in the middle of the main action. Aizen wasn’t focusing on him, so he had slightly better luck seeing through the illusions. He’d come back to make things better. How had it already become like this? He picked Sakanade back up, hoping to maintain enough influence to stop all the Shinigami from killing each other so thoroughly that the wolf espada looked flat out bored.

He was so focused on fighting Aizen’s influence that he missed when Ichigo turned up through a Garganta. He did not miss the way the blade sunk into Ichigo’s belly, too fast to stop, and neatly snapped him into two pieces. Just like Hiyori. And like that, Shinji lost his battle, and Aizen turned towards him.

If Urahara hadn’t shown up right then, Shinji would have been dead meat. He felt a surge of gratefulness with a chaser of tired anger aimed at himself. Urahara’s visage tightened with a storm of emotion Shinji couldn’t pick apart when he saw Ichigo’s dead body. At least he seemed to care about Ichigo—Shinji hadn’t been sure he’d been capable of it. He wouldn’t admit to being relieved that that guy was there, and that he’d learned some emotions, but, in the corner of his mind, he might have been.

This day was lost. Shinji wouldn’t wait until Urahara lost again, and Aizen killed him himself. Sakanade was warm in his hand, and did not resist him calling his bankai again. The cut he made wouldn’t heal any way but naturally, and he knew well that he deserved it.

He was going to need a better plan to deal with all of this if his were going to come out the other end alive.

* * *

_Loop Two_

The dusty air of the warehouse kicked off a fresh storm of emotion in Shinji. He tamped down on the urge to run right after Aizen again, but he knew better than to think that recreating his last attempt to win this battle would end any better. No, this time it was best to use his information advantage.

No one questions it when Shinji fakes getting a last-minute call from Urahara. He walks just far away that no one can hear him without actively trying and pulls himself together. He was a _captain_ , damn it. He’s only been imagining this moment for a hundred years. Sakanade has never been on the same page as him more than in this moment. He just needs to—figure out the answer.

His blood sped up in his ears, because not even eight hundred year old Shinigami were immune to panic attacks. What was he going to do? What if they had fucked up and lost their last chance to stop Aizen? His thought process was cut short by a flip flop to the head. “Hey, baldy! We gotta go before we miss our chance!”

Shinji threw the sandal back at Hiyori, grimacing. It did help though. That nervous energy knocked loose into something he could redirect into battle awareness, and his silence caught her attention better than anything he could have said. He really didn’t do serious well. “Ah. I’ve got some stuff to tell you all on the way.”

There wasn’t enough time to tell them everything, so Shinji focused on who, generally, was there; what he’d seen of Aizen’s tactics, and; his best on how to avoid the ways he’d seen them die without actually saying that that was how they’d died. That mostly amounted to ‘avoid the weird kid arrancar’, but knowing how things went wrong before wasn’t the same as being able to predict how things could go wrong differently.

They would have been too late to the party if Shinji hadn’t known exactly where to find Sasakibe in the Kido Corps encampment. As things stood, they made it just in time to see the kid arrancar blow away the barrier Yamamoto had up around Aizen.

The chance was perfect. Shinji released Sakanade, focusing on the kid and his pet monster, giving the others an opening. Hachi performed a binding kidō to keep the three traitor Shinigami in place while Mashiro, Hiyori, Kensei, and Lisa rushed in, Rose and Love watching their backs.

Good thing that they were. Shinji had his hands full, redirecting the great puffs the monster made at whatever arrancar was nearest. He’d managed to distract Halibel and her fracción even while getting pushed around by the kid, but he wasn’t quite distracted enough to miss the one who’d disintegrated Hachi’s arm going after them. That was, of course, when the Gotei started fighting with them, Soi Fon getting the guy once with her shikai in his distraction. And—Shinji turned back to his own battle, lest he get cut in half, as was becoming the bad joke of his life.

As a surprise attack, they were only going to get one good shot at this. The dust took a good moment to clear, and once it did Shinji let his attention wander just far enough to see Aizen sitting up in the rubble, dirtied and bloodied but not dead. At least everyone still seemed to be alive for now. Aizen met his eyes, smirking like he did the day he’d hollowified them.

Aizen flash-stepped in front of him, thin lips contorting into the beginning of yet another villainous monologue, and Shinji decided he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity. He gripped Sakanade by the hilt, turned, and tried to cut Aizen in half.

Surprisingly, it worked.

Shinji froze. _It….worked?_

And then the illusion. _Shattered._

Ichigo fell in two pieces at his feet, mouth working uselessly for the few seconds before his brain realized its blood wasn’t pumping anymore. Shinji met Unohana’s stern eyes as she emerged from the garganta they had used. No, there wasn’t anyone on this plane of existence that could save Ichigo now.

Shinji let out a roar of anguish, Sakanade’s mask forming in sharp bits of hollow flesh that burned his face as they emerged, and swiped at where he thought Aizen was now. His first stroke injured one of the Gotei kids who’d gotten in after they’d left. The second hit empty air, and Shinji felt his mask crumble away just as quickly as his chest opened up straight around the middle.

His vision blurred with hollow-white as Aizen chuckled above him. Damn it, but he wasn’t even going to be allowed to die like he deserved without getting monologued at. “I was looking forward to seeing what kind of tools Urahara Kisuke would mold for me, but perhaps this is even more amusing. The student, cut down by the teacher. Killed by an ally he’d never thought would hurt him, and indeed who wouldn’t. I will remember the look in his eyes as I ascend—as I will remember the look in yours. What helpless anger, what fear, what _resolve._ All of it useless, of course.”

Yeah. No point in listening to that. Shinji tried to take in what else was going on on the battlefield. It looked like the Captains’ fights against the Espada weren’t meaningfully changed, so perhaps there had been more strategy to their choice of opponent than Soi Fon pitting up against someone immune to close-range attacks would suggest. Hah. Maybe the Gotei were just unlucky. He chuckled despite himself.

A burst of pain brought Shinji back to where Aizen was staring down at him with badly overdramatic faux-concern writ over his face. He’d just twisted the blade still in Shinji’s belly. “Are you doing okay, _Captain?_ ”

And Shinji lost his shocky hold on reality in favor of horror and anger. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Urahara by Ichigo’s body, though he couldn’t make out any expression. Shinji’s lips twisted—too late to play savior this time. Better luck next loop.

Damn, he _was_ going to have to do this again, wasn’t he?

And then Urahara stepped lightly out of the breeze in front of him, snapping some high level bakudō onto Aizen. Shinji would have gotten out of his line of fire if he could, but Urahara was precise enough not to hit him anyway. The striped hat was there, but from Shinji’s vantage point below it did not hide the calm focus on his face, the eyes that took in everything in turn, or the resolve keeping his chin up. He didn’t miss the way that Urahara was already putting out his next kidō even while Aizen was easily breaking out of the first, or the way he’d hidden something in the flash of its unfurling into existence.

At first, Shinji wanted to rage at how that calm resolve could coexist with the massacre the battleground had become. He hadn’t seen any of the other Vizards in a while, and he wasn’t sure he was expecting to again at this point. Ichigo’s reiatsu had dissipated into the regular miasma of this place so much that he couldn’t even sense where he’d been. And all of that and he couldn’t even be sure he was fighting the real Aizen.

But Urahara kept on going through different attacks, chained through with purpose even as Aizen kept rebuffing them. What was he waiting for? What had Shinji missed?

That creepy Gin kid, apparently. Who revealed that the solution to Aizen’s powers was to touch his sword. Huh, guess Aizen really had stuck around to monologue, even if the kid had grabbed the sword out of Shinji’s still-bleeding body, and he’d be dead in a minute without hollow regeneration.

And then he’d stolen the hōgyoku, and tossed it to Urahara, and Shinji had officially lost the plot.

Not that that was a problem for much longer. Urahara switched his efforts to unbinding the hōgyoku from Aizen while Gin distracted him, but with a hundred years of experience a few more seconds wasn’t going to make the thing any more understandable.

Shinji didn’t see Gin get cut down, but he presumed that’s what must have happened when Aizen alone showed back up to attack Urahara, who immediately shifted back to attacking, this time with Yoruichi’s and Isshin’s help. Definitely a face he hadn’t been expecting, and one that didn’t last long, fighting more with a father’s grief than a captain’s skill.

He thought Aizen might have been truly hampered by one or another of Urahara’s attempts, but he couldn’t be sure with the way Aizen laughed as Urahara fell.

Shinji watched until the end before powering up Sakanade one more time and turning it against himself.

* * *

_Loop Three_

The moment between near-death pain and pre-battle adrenaline was disorienting as ever, and the way it was so easily erased like it never happened made Shinji angry, even as he knew it was the point. No one else had to carry this burden. No one else would.

He burst out of the warehouse, ignoring the questioning shouts of the other Vizards as they followed him at full speed towards the fake town. He ignored the encampment, and pushed his way through in the way Sasakibe had taken them through three times now, and didn’t stop even to take in the setup, which was much as it had been in his first loop.

No, Shinji tapped into his rage at how unkillable Aizen seemed to be, at the way he’d tricked Shinji last time, at how he’d kept being tricked even though by now Shinji really _should_ know what to look for with Aizen. That rage trickled into hollow bone forming not only over his face, but encompassing as much of his body as fast as it could grow. That rage fed his sword’s resolve, and Shinji had never felt power like he had in that moment.

He sensed Aizen’s curiosity as he roared, and the way that the arrancar, none of whom were fighting yet, reacted to that curiosity by watching.

He didn’t have a plan, not really. He just grabbed at Kyōka Suigetsu and tried to do exactly to Aizen what he’d done to Ichigo.

He supposed he was lucky that Aizen didn’t just kill him, for whatever value of lucky. A monologue about how he’d make an excellent part of Aizen’s army with a little creative memory modification was probably worse.

Watching all the people he cared for die again at each other’s hands in a pointless battle royale he could see through was worse.

Watching Unohana fall for the first time, having gone full berserker in a way Shinji had only heard stories about when he was a young one, was the shock to his system that he needed to pull himself together.

Urahara and Ichigo both survived long enough to team up, with Ichigo providing some kind of distraction for Urahara’s bindings. It was doomed to fail in its current incarnation, especially once Aizen began evolving, but it was still good to see their resolves and remind himself what he was really there for.

This time, Shinji decided he wasn’t going to watch them die. It was a foregone conclusion anyway. He unsealed Sakanade, deciding that he was definitely going to talk to Urahara, and not make another idiotic suicide run. The last bit of mask on his torso broke off as Shinji stabbed Sakanade through his chest, into the hole Aizen had made.

At least he didn’t think anyone he cared about had been cut in half this time. He didn’t think he counted.

* * *

_Loop Four_

His chest ached. He barely resisted the urge to take off his shirt and make sure the skin was smooth and not torn apart as it had been so many times now. He shut his eyes against the memory of his stupid last run and promptly swayed, the world going soft around the edges with the knowledge that his reactions were impaired even as his paranoia heightened. Battle fatigue. Inevitable, using his bankai like this, but not good. Much more like this and he’d be useless in a fight.

Not that fighting had gotten him anywhere so far. Wasn’t like anyone had seen fit to read them in on the plans.

Well. Now there was a thought. There wasn’t really time to prepare something new, not when the battle was already underway. Or at least, _he_ couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to out-plan Aizen even when he was the one with greater resources back in the Gotei.

The others were finishing their own preparations, gearing up for the fight. Lisa caught his eyes as he stood to go.

“Are we ready?” She asked.

“Yeah. Mostly. I’m gonna check in with Urahara. You go ahead, and I’ll meet you there.”

That caught the others’ attention. “Oi Baldy, giving up your shot at taking down Aizen to dance around that asshole again?”

But Shinji, already walking away, just lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “I won’t be too late to take my piece outta his hide. Just something I gotta check first.”

There were some grumbles, but no one followed him out. One hundred years worth of revenge was some kind of drug, only outweighed by the exhaustion of having speedrun this battle four times to no success. His thankfully-intact guts twisted like they also knew revenge as he approached where he sensed Urahara’s reiatsu. It was nearer than he’d expected, about as far as he could get in the Naruki warehouse district from the Vizards without crossing over into the bits of Karakura that were now in Soul Society. He supposed the shop didn’t make for as good a staging ground when it was in another dimension.

Yoruichi and Isshin were there too when Shinji stepped inside. Isshin made a movement to hide before realizing that it was useless. If things weren’t what they were, Shinji would have spared a moment to be annoyed on Ichigo’s behalf.

“Just get out,” he tells the wall that Isshin’s trying to become part of.

“We’re busy, Shinji. Unless this is more important than Aizen.” Yoruichi stood her ground. She was wearing about half the armor that Urahara had made for her.

“More useful than those hunks of metal.” Shinji scoffed. “I need Urahara. Alone.”

Yoruichi and Urahara shared a look that ended in Yoruichi snatching the second half of the armor in one hand, the back of Isshin’s shihakushō in the other, and dragging him out like the unruly child he was.

“Are you here to kill me?” Urahara asked him quietly, eyes meeting his with a startling intensity.

“Nah. That’d be counterproductive. I want Aizen dead, and that means we’re on the same side, like usual. Unless you’re planning on sealing his soul to take his place—”

“Is that what you truly think of me? That I would destroy the worlds for power?”

“Nope. I think you’re our best strategist on hand. I’m sure the Second taught you to use all your best resources. D’you think I’d be here if I hated you that much?” And then, reassessing the look on Urahara’s face, “You can’t think we hate you that much, after all this time? Not even Hiyori cares that much anymore. It’s not like it was your fault. Idiot. If I did, I definitely wouldn’t be here asking you for _help_.”

Shinji felt his face twist like the hives he felt like he should be getting from this, but it was worth it to see Urahara’s jaw drop a little bit.

“Fine. If I’m a resource, than use me. What intel could you have that I don’t already?”

Okay, that was definitely satisfying. “He’s activated the hōgyoku enough that it’s giving him power ups without all of the ripping apart your soul parts.” Shinji tread carefully as he explained. He left out the way Gin had taken the artefact, because that was still too much, and about the specific espada Aizen had brought with them, because they were mostly unimportant for all that they’d killed his friends multiple times. Could be killing his friends now, at this rate. Best not think about it. It wasn’t like he was winning this go around either.

“Your bankai.” Urahara said under his breath.

Shinji leaned in. “You know about it?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve kept it to myself.”

“Who would you tell?” Shinji pushed back, recognizing as he did that he’d scored a hit. He ignored it, discomfited in turn, and instead examined a table that held a number of knick-knacks he recognized as the hearts of different bindings Urahara had tried on Aizen. “So, what’s your plan?”

“My plan?” Urahara seemed surprised. “To get there as fast as I can and try to get to him before he evolves, I suppose. I hardly have the time to invent a whole new method of dealing with the hōgyoku, and the Gotei won’t listen if I tried to direct them better against the arrancar. The best I can do is to change how I go against Aizen, and all that seems to mean is to give him the least amount of time to evolve as possible.”

“How _we_ go.” Shinji corrected. “I ain’t getting sidelined here.”

“Fine. Take those two.” Urahara pointed at a small bit of bluish metal and a small cuff with a red crystal. “The metal is sensitive to reiatsu, and is easily molded. The cuff is a target and amplifier for certain kinds of kidō. It’s important to get that one on Aizen as quickly as possible.”

“Fine. Thanks.” Shinji pressed some reiatsu into the metal, forming it into a twisted bracelet on his left hand. That still left his sword hand free. The cuff he shoved into a pocket for now. “Anything else before we go?”

“No. I’ll call Tessai and Yoruichi on the way.”

Shinji considered Urahara a moment, taking in his resolve and reaffirming to himself that he could and did trust Urahara fully in this. There was something about the fierce purpose in those eyes that made him sit up and know that, however this went down, Urahara was someone he wanted at his side and protecting his back. It was a novel feeling. He felt that way about most of the Vizards, and Ichigo had inspired that in all of them enough that they named themselves his allies. He wondered if this was Ichigo’s influence also, or if he’d just never cared to notice Urahara for what he was.

The moment broke when Urahara flash-stepped away, towards the dome. Shinji was half a step behind, and slipped even a little further back because Urahara was about as fast as you’d expect for someone who trained fairly regularly with the Goddess of Flash.

He was already halfway through a conversation with Tessai in the Kido Corps encampment when Shinji touched down.

“—know what the plan was, but plans have to change as information does,” Urahara was explaining. “Aizen has pushed the hōgyoku further in its development than I had thought, and preventing the arrancar or Aizen from leaving will not be enough once Aizen begins to evolve alongside it. We need to spend more effort binding Aizen specifically.”

“How far along are things inside?” Shinji asked.

“The arrancar broke one of the main support pillars for the kidō preventing them from leaving,” Tessai addressed him. “We have been successful in containing them within the boundaries, though less so in preventing further allies of theirs from emerging from Hueco Mundo.”

“That does make it easier for Ichigo and those who went with him to return,” Urahara demurred, amusing Shinji. He didn’t think he’d seen Urahara and Tessai disagree before.

“There are better things to trust this battle to than the mettle of one boy, no matter what he is.”

“Hmm.”

The amusement died away as the conversation stalled there. If he wasn’t going to learn anything else useful, then it was time to see what he could get out of the battle. “Are we going inside anytime soon?”

“What’s the rush?” Urahara chuckled, but there was no mirth behind it, and Tessai nodded as he led them to an entrance. Shinji supposed it wasn’t a far leap for Urahara to guess he’d planned on using his bankai again. They stepped into the dome, finding Yoruichi and Isshin were loitering on the other side.

Isshin jumped, but Yoruichi didn’t even turn towards them. “Good, you’re here. Byakuya-bo sent a message that Unohana and Kurosaki are on the way. Their arrival would be a good time to attack; it’ll mask us for long enough to get in at least one good shot. You in, Hirako?”

“Yeah.” Shinji refocused afterwards to the main battle. He didn’t _think_ that Yoruichi and Urahara had been there this early in other loops, but in his absence it looked like the other Vizards were somewhat more cautious. No one was getting cut in half, and they were staying in larger groups. A couple of the Shinigami were showing heavier wounds, and the Espada weren’t going down, so the battle might end up naturally more drawn out unless Aizen pushed it forward again.

Then he eyed Urahara out of the corner of his eye. The man was watching the battle as intently as Shinji had a moment before, putting things together quickly to make up for his lack of beginning information. Would it be enough to outdo Aizen?

They were going to find out. That was about the point when Ichigo erupted from a garganta, bankai at the ready, slashing at the back of Aizen’s neck. Useless as the first time. Maybe that’s something he should have remembered. Whoops. Urahara shifted next to him, putting together a new plan on the fly.

Time was of the essence though, and perhaps the way that everyone left was dogpiling on Aizen would hide them just as well as Ichigo might have.

He didn’t immediately recognize the kidō chant Urahara began, which spoke to its power. Still, that was as much a ‘stop sitting on your hands’ as Shinji needed, and he thrust himself back into a battle mindset. Sakanade spun around his wrist, reaching for Aizen’s perceptions. If he could make Urahara’s first blow _count…_

Yoruichi tensed beside them. “It’s too close. Get Ichigo out of there, Shiba.”

“Ah.” Isshin jumped into the fray. The kidō chant was wrapping up, by the rhythm, and there was a moment where Shinji thought Ichigo wouldn’t make it. But he did, and when Urahara fired Hadō #91, Aizen turned in the wrong direction to block the ten bolts of pink energy.

The three of them scattered as Aizen looked around for them. “Hirako Shinji, my old captain, here at last. I would think you would want to test your mettle against me, like the rest of your… _comrades_.”

Shinji bared his teeth but didn’t move from behind the broken building he’d sheltered in. He did see enough energy build up for what had to be another 90s-level kidō, so he prepared to change his shikai again.

He didn’t expect the blade that stabbed him in the back. He hadn’t sensed any reiatsu nearby. If he could have, he would have dropped Sakanade as he turned to look. Ichimaru Gin smiled back at him, the same mirthless, ruthless smile he had seen the day the boy had joined his division.

“Hello, Captain.”

Gin’s blade retracted, and swerved towards him again, fast as anything. But Shinji was wise to his tricks, and ducked out of the way. He couldn’t look down to see, but some twisted intent was making the bit of metal Urahara had given him start to work as a makeshift bandage or stitch. Either that, or he was losing blood faster than he’d thought.

“Didya miss me?”

“Sometimes,” Shinji replied, half-admission, half-stalling tactic. “You had potential, or I wouldn’t have let someone so young into my division, lieutenant’s recommendation or not.”

Gin’s eyes rose with true surprise. Shinji would have pressed on, but he felt the telltale first signal of Aizen evolving, and grimaced. “And your job is done. That’s the point of no return.”

“Hmm?”

“Can’t you sense him? Aizen? It’s evolving. The battle’s over, he’s won.”

Isshin’s reiatsu flared and went dark as Shinji waited for a response. Urahara and Yoruichi let out a big release of some kind, and Aizen’s changed reiatsu rose to meet theirs, and changed again. He even took a moment to peek out and see what was going on, since Gin wasn’t stopping him. Isshin was in multiple pieces, if the way his head, connected only to his left arm, was staring back at him from the ground. Aizen had what looked like white hollow material fused to his face, holding back Ichigo as Urahara tapped him with something else.

When he looked back, Gin wasn’t there. He was across the battlefield, standing against the group fighting Aizen.

Shinji swore and snapped a Rikujōkōrō in his direction. That stopped him from moving, but didn’t prevent his Zanpakutō from flying out and cutting into Ichigo, who was fighting with more anger and less skill than Shinji had ever seen.

Urahara tried….something. Shinji wasn’t sure what, except that Aizen wasn’t waiting anymore. He evolved for a third time, and as much as Shinji wanted to defeat him, he’s giving this go up as a bad job. Urahara doesn’t seem to be on the same page, but who could tell with that one. He’d probably keep trying to seal Aizen until he died.

This might not have worked out, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been useful. They were too far apart and there was no way to explain, but if he talked again again Urahara, maybe he’d even take him back with him. That’d be one way to make him some time to deal with things.

He didn’t look back as he released his bankai and cut his arm with it, wondering if it would be too melodramatic to cut his throat instead.

* * *

_Loop Five_

Shinji shuddered, suddenly cold with remembered blood loss as he returned to himself at the warehouse. He was definitely going to change his clothes this time at least. Even if they returned in much better states than when he’d left, there was still a ghost-sense of tacky blood he was keen on getting rid of.

When he took off his pants, he felt something in the pocket. The cuff Urahara had given him—it had come back with him. An interesting quirk he hadn’t been thinking about. The bit of reiatsu-moldable metal was there too, and he reformed it into a bracelet. That would be useful. It also gave him the seed of an idea he could use to end this.

He’d pursue it if his current theory failed, mostly because it would likely involve too many loops, and this one didn’t. Even if returning like this didn’t eat his reiatsu as much as he’d have thought, mostly because he wasn’t using his bankai more than a second at a time, it was still physically and mentally exhausting, and if he broke his mind then he was getting even more nowhere than usual.

“Oi, Baldy, you ready to kick Aizen’s butt?” Hiyori shouted from outside his door.

Shinji pushed the door open, nearly hitting her in the face. “Did you think you were going to start without me?”

“Let’s go,” Kensei pushed himself up from where he’d been sitting. Shinji was the last, this time.

That was fine. Shinji ignored where he now knew Urahara would be. He didn’t have time for that conversation if this all went off properly. On the approach to the dome, Shinji pushed himself into the lead, so that it felt natural for him to lead them right to the Kidō Corps encampment.

“Yo, Tessai!” Shinji called out. “We’re here.”

Tessai looked up from the papers he was looking at. “Hirako. What are you looking for?”

“What’s the Kidō Corps’ play here?” Shinji straight-out asked. “We don’t have long before they start taking down the structures inside, and if you’ve got a plan to take down Aizen then we’re in.”

Miraculously, none of the others questioned him while Tessai glanced around thoughtfully. “We need Aizen inside the barrier for a time to charge the seal. If you could provide additional protection to the four pillars inside the dome, it would raise our chances of success.”

“How long do you need.”

“As long as you can give us.”

Shinji nodded once, sharply. “Got it. Anything for when Aizen evolves?”

“Evolves?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Shinji muttered, turning back towards the group. “We’re going in! Pair up and take a pillar.”

“And you just wanna give up our shot at taking him?” Hiyori snapped.

“Better that Aizen go down permanently,” Shinji argued, even as they entered the space. Hiyori glared at him, but Lisa made eye contact over her head. Shinji met her eyes until Lisa looked away, dragging Hiyori off to the western pillar.

Mashiro bounced off towards the southern one, though Kensei also stopped to gauge Shinji before following. Rose and Love took the northern end with only a little grumbling, leaving Hachi and Shinji.

Fair enough. They didn’t talk as they got to the pillar, where a fight was nearing completion between an unseated shinigami Shinji still didn’t know and an arrancar that never seemed to survive for long. The power-draining shikai was powerful though, and he wondered why this one hadn’t made it to lieutenant. Surely even more positions had opened up now that Soul Society knew about Aizen.

Then again, the guy startled at the sight of them after he put away his shikai, clearly not having heard them come up. Not the kind of skill Shinji would have expected to hold a pillar so apparently central to their plas—except, was that an Eleventh Division mark on his robes? Perhaps that made sense.

Per Shinji’s memory, three of the pillars usually survived the initial onslaught. Rose and Love seemed to have drawn the pillar that didn’t, by the way their reiatsu was fluctuating. That was probably fine. It wasn’t like his friends were weak.

Even as that battle was happening, the espada seemed to have pulled themselves together enough despite their leader being out of touch to attack. Defending the pillar wasn’t tough when it was just dealing with a few stray attacks or careless area effects. None of the Vizards were dead for once, and the remaining battles were orderly enough not to give Aizen that extra advantage.

And yet, something niggled at Shinji. Something wasn’t right.

He thought he felt Urahara’s reiatsu flicker into existence before disappearing right on the edge of the dome. He didn’t think he would have noticed if he hadn’t been searching the environment for something to explain his unease. A garganta opened to reveal the kid arrancar who freed Aizen from Yamamoto’s fiery barrier and his pet monster, and that was a sufficient distraction. Shinji felt himself slide into a familiar mindset as he gripped Sakanade, ready to spin the wave of air in a different direction if Hachi’s seal broke. A low beat of reiatsu began to emanate from the pillar, and Shinji saw that all four were still up.

When he looked back, Aizen was smiling right at him. His heart skipped a beat, and kept skipping faster. It took a few moments for him to approach, but it never took Aizen long to cut down the captains who would pit themselves against him. Shinji had enough time to back away from the pillar before Aizen appeared in front of him, invading his personal space.

“Hello there, Captain,” Aizen purred, twisting a lock of Shinji’s hair between his fingers.. Shinji did not hold back his urge to punch him in the face, reiatsu metal forming into a claw Shinji used to rake through his eyes. When they pushed through with less resistance than air, he nearly flinched back in surprise. There was a moment there where he could—but no, he’d made his choice already. Using his dominant hand, sheathed Sakanade and made a grab for Aizen’s wrist.

That was about the point Aizen started fighting back seriously. Shinji wasn’t sure if Aizen _needed_ to see for his shikai, or if the injury was just disorientating, but it was primarily kidō that Aizen flung at him.

It wasn’t Aizen that pushed him back the most; that honor went to Ichigo, who appeared partway through that fight. If not for the sheer power manifesting as wind, Shinji would have been able to take advantage of Aizen’s preoccupation with his neck shield, but alas. Some opportunities were made to be missed. He’d still take the at-worst 2 vs 1 odds, with Urahara probably watching somewhere.

Not that he got to explore that either. What had begun as a dull roar now became a shrill scream, the caterpillar metamorphosed into a butterfly and still angry at the world.

The most powerful kidō Shinji thought he’d ever seen snapped into being around Aizen. He couldn’t have said what it looked like, except he could feel the power of the entire Kidō Corps brought to bear like a pressure headache, and that it sparkled gold and green when Aizen broke through it, already evolved, some time later. Shinji didn’t know how long, only that this must be what it felt to be an unseated Shinigami in the vicinity of a captain’s unblunted bankai.

A second seal, somehow even more densely packed with power than the first, whistled into existence, and Shinji couldn’t say for sure that he was conscious through that entire part of the fight, even his mask.

And then Aizen broke through that one too, even more evolved, and there was a crack in the distance as all four pillars fell apart at once.

For the first time, Shinji felt despair as he looked at Aizen, and reached once again for Sakanade’s power.

* * *

_Loop Six_

The sudden absence of pressure around him made Shinji fall to his knees, hard panting breaths turned nearly to sobbing before he got himself back under control. He didn’t have long to prepare before the others came knocking and he was heading back into battle again. He debated the merits of letting himself rest for an entire loop. If he couldn’t figure it out soon, he was going to drop one way or the other, and one perk of age was the experience that told him that resting and planning were crucial, and that it might take him less time overall to solve this problem than if he kept running in.

Even so, he was working on a time limit. His bankai was never up for long like this, but even short bursts would take its toll on him, and he’d used his bankai six times in quick succession, even aside from the time he’d spent in shikai and using his mask. His reiatsu might give before his willpower, and this loop was short enough not to allow for the kind of rest he’d have wanted for himself to keep it sustainable.

Damn it, but if he wasn’t going to be able to do it, he was going to have to ask for help. Again.

When the knock came, he splashed a little water on his face and stuck a grin on his face that didn’t quite feel natural. Acting was half a step away from reality.

“Oi, Baldy, you ready to go?” Hiyori barreled into his space.

“Almost, midget!” Shinji pushed his face wider. “But first, a bit of new intel!”

“From Urahara?” Lisa asked.

Shinji hummed, answered instead, “Aizen managed to implant his hōgyoku into himself. We gotta get it out of him, before he absorbs its power. Touching his sword negates those effects, so if we get close, make sure it’s the real him before giving up the game.”

“But what are we gonna do with that hunk of rock?” Mashiro asked.

“If Aizen wants it, better that he doesn’t have it,” Kensei frowned at her.

There was a bit more discussion that Shinji didn’t listen to in favor of checking his remaining reiryoku. Nothing good on that score, but not quite as bad as he’d feared. If he was careful, that was still a couple more chances. He should be able to do something with that.

He opened his eyes again when the discussion seemed to have wound down. Waiting for him. The grin gentled into something more natural, a fondness for these people who’d grown on him like weeds around garden stones. No matter how prickly he or they could be, even if he cut them away, they’d grow back as long as he didn’t uproot them, and maybe even if he had. He’d seen them all die now, after all.

“Let’s go?” He asked.

“Yeah!”

Hiyori was the first out the door, and Shinji followed her, resolve firmly clenched. One more plan, one more time. If he was lucky, it’d even work.

He paid no mind to the Kidō Corps, not wanting to begin the explanation of why he knew their efforts were doomed to failure. He just led the group to the opening in the dome they’d been using as an entrance. They entered onto the battlefield at a similar point to the first time. The pillars were not intact, there were captains fighting espada, and Aizen was still in Yamamoto’s barrier.

Shinji waved them behind a building away from the main fight as a garganta opened, revealing the now-familiar arrancar boy and his pet monster. “I don’t think that barrier around Aizen’s going to last much longer. We should take the opportunity.”

“Ooh! I can distract the big one!” Mashiro exclaimed.

“We can,” Kensei agreed.

“What about Yamamoto?” Love asked. “We don’t want to be in his blast area.”

“That doesn’t look like it will be a problem much longer,” Lisa nodded back at the battle area, where Yamamoto was fighting the arrancar boy, Aizen and Gin watching on. Tōsen wasn’t there, but Shinji thought he remembered that as being the case anyway.

“If Hachi, Hiyori, and I distract him going up front, do you think you could sneak in?” Shinji addressed Rose, Love, and Lisa.

“Be loud,” Lisa instructed. “Let’s kill him.”

They all shifted into a quick flash-step, Kensei and Mashiro peeling off to buy them space. Lisa, Love, and Rose all disappeared into the landscape, Hachi and Hiyori shouldering most of the work to cover their reiatsu as much as possible, Hiyori shifting into shikai to help. Hachi put up a barrier just strong enough to catch Aizen’s attention and redirect it their way.

“Oi, baldy! Catch these sandals!” Hiyori snarled, hurtling full speed towards Aizen. Shinji’s heart stopped beating for a breath as the sight was overlaid with Aizen slicing Hiyori apart in another timeline, but she was more focused than desperate in this one, and reality reasserted itself as she was just pushed away, though he didn’t even deign to use his sword on her.

Shinji unsheathed his sword, but held back from his shikai as he attacked, feinting with Sakanade and going for the eyes again with the claws. Aizen saw him coming and caught his wrist, throwing him to the side. One didn’t get to be as old as he was without learning how to fall though, and by the time Shinji had recovered, Hiyori had gone in for another attack.

In the space between Aizen deflecting Hiyori and his next blow, Lisa appeared from above, grabbing onto Kyōka Suigetsu. It was enough to surprise Aizen, but not fast enough for her to not be shaken off. Shinji did get in a blow, and tried to reach around and grab the gem—when he got shot by Gin’s shikai and pushed away. Foiled, foiled, and foiled again. If Shinji had another loop in him, he was going to isolate Gin somehow, because the creepy kid was a _Problem._

Aizen cut down Rose and Love almost before they’d attacked, and it was only Hachi’s timely intervention that preserved their lives. None of the rest of them were unscathed, even Aizen, though he wasn’t sure that a few small cuts and a sleeve ripped half off was much showing for a six-on-one.

Shinji raised Sakanade again when Ichigo appeared, and gave them all a short breather. Normally he might have stayed, tried to help Ichigo. But right now he was too exhausted, and the spectre of Urahara’s reiatsu in the background was more promising.

True to form, Urahara was settled with some kind of reiatsu dampening device to keep relatively unnoticed in a corner. He also didn’t so much as flinch when Shinji settled down next to him. “Your bindings aren’t going to work, and neither are the Corps’,” he greeted.

“Hmm. I take it you have a better plan?”

“Half of one. We need to get the hōgyoku away from Aizen before he evolves with it. He’s implanted it into himself. Pulling it out while holding his sword should do it, at least for now.”

Urahara hummed again, taking on his serious planning face. Shinji didn’t have the capacity to make a joke about it anymore, but something in him relaxed at the sight. Urahara took out a communicator and spoke into it. “Yoruichi, it’s time.” And then he looked back at Shinji. “Are you able to fight?”

“I’m running near empty, but the others are better, and whatever it takes to take him down, I’ll give.”

“If you see an opportunity, take it.”

“That’s an easy ask.”

There was a loud clanging, and they both looked back towards the battlefield to see Gin fending off Ichigo as Isshin attacked Aizen, with the help of a couple of the remaining Vizards, and a look passed between the two of them. Back to business.

Yoruichi appeared, wearing the same armor as the other time, and while it shattered against Aizen, it did give Urahara one crucial moment to make his move. One moment, Aizen was lording their failed sneak attack over them; the next, Urahara was holding a sword in one hand and the hōgyoku in the other. He barely dodged the enraged swipe that that sword makes a heartbeat later. Yoruichi attacked again, buying time, but she must have been attacking an illusion, because the next thing Shinji knew, Urahara was falling in the air in two pieces. And Shinji. Screamed.

Sakanade’s misdirection and his hollow’s speed bought him the time to grab the hōgyoku out of its descent. He had it. He can win. But not like this.

 _Please_ , he thought at Sakanade, _let’s go back one more time._

And, somehow, even as his mask broke, he dredged up the energy to use his bankai one more time.

* * *

_Loop Seven_

Color splashed behind Shinji’s closed eyes as he woke up once more in the warehouse, right before the start of the battle. For a long moment, he wonders if he died, or if he’s been dreaming. And then his hand unclawed around the hōgyoku, still wet with Urahara’s blood, and it hit him all at once.

Not reiatsu exhaustion, somehow. He felt surprisingly good on that score. Extremely surprisingly. But he’d fought the good fight against Aizen enough times now that he didn’t think anything he could pull out at this juncture would be enough. If he had more time, maybe, or could go back further—if he could maybe convince the Gotei captains to use their bankais from the start especially since there were no innocents around to be crushed—if he could prevent Urahara’s hōgyoku from getting into Aizen’s hands in the first place.

But no doubt if the battle hadn’t already begun in the distance then it would again momentarily, and nothing he could do would be enough.

He was so stuck in his own head that he didn’t even notice Hiyori breaking down his door, Lisa at her back. Awareness flickered back in as Hiyori did her level best to knock him over, which was surprisingly not enough, though it did keep him occupied long enough.

“Why do you have that?” Lisa growled.

Shinji sighed, throwing a leg over Hiyori to contain her long enough to answer. “You know about my bankai?”

“You upgrade from changing perception to changing reality on a limited scale, right? But you have to cut someone for it to work.”

“That’s pretty much it. It works on myself, too. So this is short-term time travel, coming right from the end of the battle.”

“And the rock?”

“It doesn’t go very well for us.” Shinji chuckled, but he just sounded tired. “Or anyone really, except Aizen.”

“I didn’t know you could take things back with you. Does that mean Aizen doesn’t have his?”

“Ha! If only it were that easy.”

A noise came from outside, and Lisa turned away from him. “The others are going to come in soon if we don’t go out. If you’ve done it before, do you have a plan?”

“Not really.”

“Well, come up with one. You’re the only one who knows why it went wrong, and we probably don’t have time for a collaboration. As it is, that means you’re our best bet for winning, and I’m not losing anything else to that bastard.” With that, Lisa turned on her heel and flash-stepped out of the room, leaving Shinji with an unusually serious Hiyori.

“Well?” He asked her.

She held his eyes with a familiar intensity. Maybe a little too familiar. Just how did they make them in the Twelfth, back then? “Did we die? Is that why?”

“Mostly, it’s that Aizen won’t die. It doesn’t seem to matter if we kill ourselves throwing everything we have at him. Even the entire Kidō Corps didn’t make much of a dent in him, with this thing’s power.”

Hiyori nodded, like that’s what she expected, or maybe just what she feared. “Are you going to use it then?”

“What!?”

“Well, it’s powerful, and you can kill fire with fire, right? If we’re not strong enough without it, then maybe we’ll be strong enough with something that can even the field.”

Shinji hadn’t thought of anything to say by the time Hiyori pushed herself out from under him.

“We gotta go if we want to fight at all. Figure out your shit and join us.”

The door slammed behind her as she left Shinji still grasping onto both the hōgyoku and reality. He didn’t want to _use_ the thing, lest he become another Aizen. Or lest he compromise the tenuous balance in his soul any further, and tipped over into being more hollow than Shinigami.

But wouldn’t it be worth it, if Aizen died for real? Wouldn’t any sacrifice be worth it to get their revenge?

Shinji twisted the reiatsu metal around the jewel until it formed a bracelet, the silver and the blue-white melding into something that he could have called pretty, if not for what it was, and pushed himself up. One more time, he told himself. He didn’t know why he was doing this anymore, except that it was a habit, maybe. A bad sign that he was getting in too deep, that maybe he should just let the world go on, except that this was Aizen. If it were anything less, he would never have gotten this deep.

The others hadn’t left yet when he finally emerged, but they did look half a minute from leaving him behind. Fine. He’d have deserved that. From the looks that they were all giving him, Lisa at least had shared what she’d found. He didn’t fiddle with the sleeve that was hiding the bracelet, and didn’t bare it to them. Hopefully it wouldn’t matter. Shinji wasn’t exactly an optimist though.

No one questioned it when he avoided the Kidō Corps, again taking them right to the entrance Urahara had used. He didn’t see him there this time, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he did. Ignore him? Tell him? If this experience had taught him anything, it was that Urahara was just a man. An extremely intelligent man, who was willing and pragmatic enough to adapt his plans on the fly, who apparently trusted Shinji’s judgment more than he would have ever guessed, but still, in the end, just a man. No monster. No god. No otherworldly being fallen to the dust with the rest of them.

He’d have to deal with him soon, but for the moment he took in the way that the captains were fighting the espada, how strong Yamamoto’s barrier felt despite its short remaining life.

“Those pillars look important,” Kensei noted.

“Ultimately useless,” Shinji threw out a careless hand. “Better spend our efforts elsewhere.”

“And Aizen?”

“That’s never worked before. He’ll be out of that barrier soon though, there’s this weird arrancar kid. If he doesn’t already know we’re here, he’ll see us.”

“What about that thing?” Lisa cut in.

Instead of replying, Shinji hid behind a building, gesturing for the others to follow. No sooner had they settled down than did the garganta open. For a moment, he wondered what it would take to prevent that, so to ruin Aizen’s plan to deal with Yamamoto enough that he’d die in a ball of fire and death. It went on the ‘to be workshopped’ list, thin as it was—it was clearly too late for that now, and it’d probably strand Ichigo and Unohana as well, which meant more people might die in the attempt. Might still be worth it.

“So, do we fight the arrancar to have the Gotei on our side for Aizen, or try to take him on ourselves?” Love asked.

“Ichimaru Gin. We should get him out of the picture, or he’ll make fighting Aizen even worse.” Shinji decided.

“Won’t Aizen fight back if we do that?”

“Ichigo’s going to be here soon. He’ll go for Aizen’s neck. If we distract Aizen enough not to notice him coming, then he won’t think to set up the barrier he uses to stop him, or at least Hachi might have the time to dispel it.”

Hachi nodded, eyeing where Aizen stood.

It was as good a plan as any, though Shinji couldn’t say he was particularly enthused by its potential for success. He was still stuck on the ‘Distracting Aizen’ team, if only for his status as Aizen’s former captain, which he knew he could use, even if it wouldn’t be enough on its own. Lisa was with him, because she could pretend to lose her temper without actually losing it to recklessness a lot better than Hiyori. Five of them was probably overkill for Gin, but the idea was to get the fight done fast, and the sooner the better.

Everything set, Shinji found himself once again standing in front of Aizen, who just projected his usual smugness at him. Didn’t even raise his sword. That was just insulting.

The hōgyoku pulsed on his wrist, almost like it could tell that something was going on. Whether it was just its proximity to its kin or Shinji’s proximity to a battle that could easily see him or his people dead again, he didn’t care to guess. His skin itched; he wanted to move it to a pocket or somewhere it would have something between it and his skin, little as he thought that would matter if it was really determined, but he could not let Aizen know he had the thing. If Aizen got his hands on it…

Well. That would be one way to say goodbye to his hopes for revenge.

He tuned out Aizen’s monologue this time, dodging where he could, making opportunities for Lisa or Hachi, and keeping a sense out for Ichigo’s garganta.

_There we go._

He made sure Hachi knew too to prevent Aizen from using his neck brace of doom, and set about to making just the right opportunity with Sakanade’s shikai. He felt something in the hōgyoku on his wrist reach out as he did, but decided to ignore the feeling of crystal creeping up his skin for now. That was a problem for the future.

Suspect as his perceptions continued to be, Shinji couldn’t shake the feeling that Ichigo had been successful in wounding Aizen at least. Either Hachi’s counter had been successful, or Shinji’s misdirection had, or both. Either way, hollow regenerative fluid gushed out the wound. It looked like they’d kickstarted Aizen’s evolution more than anything, but it was still early—maybe they had a shot.

The sound of a nuke going off in the distance was an untimely reminder that Aizen wasn’t the only battle going on, and that, without the Vizards’ help, the Shinigami had to have doubled down on the espada. He looked back long enough to confirm that that was Soi Fon taking out the one she usually fought.

When he looked back, Aizen was gone. He met Hachi’s eyes with a question, and received a shrug in response. They didn’t have to wait for long though: the other Espada were cut down summarily with nary a second of warning. This was…not good. Much as Shinji didn’t care about the espada, he knew that keeping the Gotei away from Aizen would help prevent him from evolving uncontrollably. They weren’t willingly putting out anything more than what he’d already seen tried and failed, after all. Even Ichigo, with his learning curve from Hell, didn’t have time to pull out some new nonsense.

Apparently that was now Shinji’s job. He sensed Urahara and his watching as Aizen cut down the Gotei, planning some kind of sneak attack by the positioning, and ignored the danger to reappear next to Urahara. To his credit, he didn’t startle.

“Hirako-san, what are you doing?” Urahara asked, too casually.

“Just checking out the sights.” Shinji cocked his head at Urahara. “And I’ve got a question.”

“Is it important?”

Shinji eyed Aizen, who seemed distracted enough torturing Isshin’s successor, before undoing his shirt cuff to reveal the bracelet. “You could say so.”

Urahara blinked, nonplussed, and then several more times in surprise. “That isn’t Aizen’s.” It wasn’t a question.

“It is. You know what my bankai does. I can take things, sometimes.”

“And it’s bonded to you, so of course it would come,” Urahara finished. “I see.”

“Oi! No bonding’s happened yet, and it ain’t gonna.” Shinji frowned back, holding his wrist away from his body. “I’m not going to become like that butterfly bastard.”

“Hmm. Not even if that was how to defeat him for good? If you’ve come back, then I doubt my preparations were successful.”

“No, damn it.” Shinji wasn’t sure if the denial was more towards himself or Urahara, but it was enough to draw some attention back their way. Gin’s, but not Aizen’s it looked like. Bastard was having too much fun tormenting the Gotei children. “You got any preparations for that one?”

Urahara hummed. “That conversation isn’t over just because a child wants to play in this sandbox.”

“With you, it’s never over,” Shinji huffed. He was happy enough to dodge out of the way. He didn’t have any new plans for fighting Aizen, and did have a sinking sensation that what he’d told Urahara was incorrect, that the hōgyoku might be responding to his wishes to try this again by supplementing his power. Otherwise, he’d be flirting with reiryoku exhaustion by now. He didn’t have time to worry though, not and ensure that Gin’s sword lashed out in the wrong direction. It came within a few feet of Tōsen’s fight before Gin pulled it back. Sloppy. If he’d been in better practice, it could have taken the traitor’s head right off.

Still, if he was going to be sloppy—the next swing sent the blade into the decomposition mist of that one espada, and when Gin snapped the blade back, the tip had rusted off.

He couldn’t look for Urahara or anyone else like this, but he was so _frustrated_ by this fight. As much as he didn’t like Gin, he hadn’t quite forgotten who he’d figured out how to get the hōgyoku from. He had no clue what the kid’s deal was, and what would make him turn against Aizen again, but he was going to have to figure it out before Aizen stopped gloating and started back on the fights that would actually evolve him. And here he’d thought he’d stopped beating the dead horse three loops ago.

Might as well try asking. “What did he do to you, kid?”

Gin settled into a closed eye smile that emanated relaxed menace. “Aizen offered me a place.”

“And so did we. Don’t beat around the bush—” This was punctuated by another redirected attack. “Fine. If it wasn’t you, then what was it? Someone you knew was one of his experiments? Or died to them?”

Gin put out more killing intent, but didn’t attack, rashly or otherwise. Maybe that was it, then.

“Surely you had opportunities to steal his little power up before he bound it to himself?” Shinji pushed. “Or were you more scared of it than you were him?”

On the edge of his sense, he felt Aizen begin to evolve, and knew he’d have to do this again. Well, if he’d failed, he might as well keep going, get something more out of this than questions about his rash acquisition.

 _“I won’t let everything I’ve done be for nothing,”_ Gin glared back at him hard enough his eyes cracked open. Even that was strange. He’d thought he’d get more silence from that, and from what he’d remembered, his eyes had been blue when Shinji had first met him. Now they were red and snarling—and was that a tiny hint of hollow reiatsu? Had Aizen ensured Gin would have to follow him that way, and he got it wrong?

And then he was being cut from behind. He froze, categorizing the wound. Not immediately lethal, and he had a better shot with hollow regeneration, but not good. Intentionally not good. Shinji looked over his shoulder at Aizen, not hearing the words he was saying, or parsing anything other than his smug jubilation.

And then the blade disappeared, and he fell.

He heard a scuffle, and Urahara appeared out of the corner of his eye, talking quickly at him in a way he couldn’t parse either. He wanted to though: it had to be important for Urahara to look like that. And then he felt a shock of healing, just enough of one to remember himself.

He held Sakanade out to Urahara, hilt first, as he sat up. The steady hand that gripped behind his steadied him as he reached inside himself for Sakanade’s spirit. He couldn’t find the strength to say the words, but they came anyway, and the sword twisted in on itself until it was the small blade of his bankai. A power struggle was happening on the edge of his shocky senses, and he tried to turn to pay attention to it, but Urahara didn’t let him. He held Shinji’s face from turning and drowned everything out with his reiatsu.

Perhaps it should have surprised Shinji more that he did what he did, but impulses had gained him more than planning had in the last however long it had been.

So, when Shinji brought the blade against his arm, he nicked Urahara’s as well. Those eyes were wide with the most genuine expression of hopeful surprise Shinji had seen to date, and he had the final thought that maybe he’d have tried this before if he’d known it would get him that look before the world faded to darkness.

* * *

_Loop Eight_

It was almost as shocking to wake up in an intact body as it was to have been cut in the first place. It was almost more shocking to emerge alone in his private space, which felt too large for his tiny husk of a resolve. Hells, he’d really almost died. He pulled up his arm to push his hair out of his face, and froze. There was no further room for denial about what was going on when the hōgyoku had inserted itself into his flesh.

Shinji just sat there, staring at his wrist, until he’d processed what he was seeing enough to shove his shirtsleeve back down over it, and bury his face in his hands, an overwhelmed chuckle turning into unhinged cackling, turning to sobs.

He’d wanted to take down Aizen. He hadn’t wanted this, whatever this meant for him.

The hōgyoku pulsed, radiating comfort, and Shinji’s skin went cold. That was _not helpful_ , thank you very much. He’d learned the hard way not to trust comfort or the appearances of such. Better to see the edges, to know where they were and why. Whether you meant to cut yourself on them or avoid them was up to you after.

No knock came at the door when it was time to go. He didn’t realize the oddity until the door opened without it. Nope. He did _not_ want to see anyone. “Go away, Hiyori,” He shouted, hoping his voice sounded steadier than it felt.

The person didn’t say anything, but did come closer. Shinji finally looked over, and was met with familiar, serious gray eyes. The hōgyoku pulsed again, expressing some kind of approval of Urahara. Shinji ignored it in favor of deciding whether to keep watching Urahara catalogue him, or whether to look away and pretend it wasn’t happening.

He wasn’t good at that last anymore. “See anything?” he snarked.

“Some,” Urahara allowed. “I didn’t know you could make people return with you.”

“It takes a lot outta me, so I usually don’t cut anyone else,” Shinji admitted. Without the hōgyoku’s boost, he probably would have died and failed to move Urahara a minute through time if he’d tried.

Urahara stepped towards the fake window, looking out at what was a very good render of Rukongai West Four, which was not where Shinji was from, but had held a number of good memories for him during his time in the Fifth. It wasn’t quite as built up as the any of the districts One directly adjoining the Seireitei, but it was close enough to get to easily while also having more in the way of open-air markets and spaces for people to exist in. It was a kind of place that he’d never imagine Urahara in, and seeing him in front of the view was some kind of cognitive dissonance that Shinji didn’t want to examine too closely.

“Are you up for taking us back again?” Urahara asked softly.

“We need a plan before we go back out to that battle.”

“We can discuss then, what you’ve seen tried before, if you’re up to it.” Urahara straightened, and Shinji felt his face move awkwardly with the tear tracks that still had to be somewhat visible as his spine firmed in return. He rubbed his face with a little water out of a flask, and nodded.

“The Kidō Corps, even when all the barriers survived, only made Aizen evolve faster. I don’t remember all the kidō I’ve seen you try, but neither hadō, bakudō, or bindings seem to have had any effect. And he said something about reiatsu vents I didn’t quite catch. I’ve only seen one world where Ichigo lands a hit on his first go, but we were making sure AIzen didn’t make the neck shield, and in more universes, he just dies right away. Plus Gin took the hōgyoku in one, though that was a while ago; it’s how I learned. That’s about it.” Shinji ticked them off on his fingers, but looked up in time to see several emotions pass over Urahara’s face, a flicker of fear replaced very quickly by a leaden box of focus and resolve.

“Hmm. May I see your hōgyoku?”

Shinji grimaced and held out his arm. Urahara blinked. “Can’t get it out.”

“No, of course not.” That resolved frown upturned into a vicious smile. “But you won’t need to try if you don’t want it, if we make it more powerful than Aizen’s. It may take a few loops, but it should be doable.”

“Why would it take a few loops?” Shinji’s hackles were rising. “What do you think is happening here?”

“You asked me for a plan. Unless you can take us back farther, I’m using all the tools we have at our disposal. Fortunately for us, that is quite the powerful one, and, better, it likes you. That means it’s useful. If we can feed it, it will likely indulge us.”

“One hundred years with one of these things and you’re asking me to _let it use me?”_

“Not quite so dramatic. I spent a hundred years with a hōgyoku that could not be awakened or released. If the first worked out, then you and the other Vizards would no longer have hollows to content with. The latter, and I may have just freed it, as something like that would be useless to me and doing so may have gained the Soul King’s favor. Souls are generally supposed to keep flowing, after all.”

“So you’re basically saying you’re flying as blind as I am.”

“Not exactly—”

“Urahara.”

The hat came down to cover his eyes. “Perhaps, somewhat. In any case, if that is the only variable that has been changing, then it stands to reason that it is our best chance at success. As long as its memory does not expand to its current incarnation with Aizen, at least.”

“You sure know how to please a guy,” Shinji muttered, taking his arm back. It was tingly, and Shinji chose to attribute the feeling to the fact that he’d been holding it out from his body for several minutes. “Fine. Since you’re still the expert, what do we do with this rock?”

“Feed it.”

“Feed it what?”

“Don’t be obtuse, you know better. Feed it _souls_ , the more powerful the fewer will get the job done. We’ll need it to be more powerful than Aizen’s if you’re not going to bond it as closely. If only there were a battle with a number of captains and powerful arrancar.”

“I’m not feeding this thing with my friends!” Shinji growled back, edged with a surprising amount of hollow static. “Not even if they’ll reset with the universe.”

“Then we may be doing this for quite some time,” Urahara smiled. It wasn’t particularly nice. “And I would think that as long as we keep looping, it shouldn’t affect the ones who’d survive. And if it’s feeding you power, that should not be an issue.”

“Oh, fuck off. I want to kill Aizen, but what’s the use if we actually lose ourselves in the process?”

“Aizen’s plans will destroy the worlds as we know them if they come to fruition. I would think that that would matter more than some morals about alternate versions of the people who remember you who won’t exist long enough to form new opinions.”

Shinji wated to snarl again, but a thought suddenly popped into his head. “None of the other Vizards have come in. What did you tell them? Are they at the battle?”

“They should be. I told them that I needed specifically you for something, and that we’d be there a little later.”

“One thing we need to make clear: _I don’t lie to them_. Whatever else you and I do in all of this, the eight of us have _rules._ They’ve kept us people this long, and I wont—compromise myself, it won’t help this.”

“Fine. We can even go there before looping if you like, to have that comfort. No one would notice a few souls lost in the carnage of the later bits of the battle, from what I saw the last time, so it might even be for the best.”

“You’re a stone-cold bastard, Urahara Kisuke.”

“When I need to be, yes. We wouldn’t still be talking otherwise.”

Shinji couldn’t really argue with that. As much as he wanted to spend the rest of the loop catching his breath a little more, the exhaustion from his breakdown compounding with his ever-mounting battle fatigue, he did appreciate the steel in Urahara’s spine. Even the knowledge that that steel would be turned against him if he needed to be sacrificed to defeat Aizen was surprisingly comforting, even if Shinji wasn’t sure he could say he’d quite have the stomach for it himself. Then again, Ichigo, so maybe he just didn’t want to.

“If I end up like that bastard afterwards, will you kill me?”

Urahara didn’t respond verbally, catching Shinji’s eyes and holding them for a good six seconds of soul-searching and acknowledgment. Shinji knew the kind of monster that bit behind Urahara’s teeth, and what he was asking of him. He expected the nod. “I will.”

“Good.”

They eased back into a discussion of what they were going to do in the next loop. Sooner rather than later, they felt a pop in their reiatsu senses. The barrier, Shinji thought. “It’s time,” Urahara cut in.

“Yeah.” Shinji eased Sakanade out of her sheath and set her to spinning through shikai just long enough to pull out his bankai. He felt Urahara’s gaze, strangely invasive as it picked apart…something or other, Shinji couldn’t guess. He considered for a moment just nicking himself, but there was something to having someone who knew what was going on, and who could keep pushing along to their shared goal. It helped that he knew that as long as he wanted Urahara to come with, it wouldn’t cost him more energy to take him too.

He picked up Urahara’s left arm, and turned it over, a little surprised that Urahara let him. He held it steady with his right hand as, with one cut, he opened a shallow scratch on both of them. There was a bead of blood, and then two, and then it was done.

* * *

_Loop Nine_

Shinji blinked and again he was alone in his room in the Vizard’s warehouse. He changed his shirt again, to one that had sleeves that were easier to pull up and down. It didn’t quite look as good with his pants, but he’d hit the double digits in attempts, it wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone except with his practicality and his results.

He’d agreed to meet Urahara at the battlefield. There just wasn’t much point in meeting up before, and it wasn’t like the space was so large they wouldn’t be able to work together. Besides, the plan was relatively simple, and flexible to account for the hōgyoku. Shouldn’t be that hard.

He joined the other Vizard in waiting for everyone, not really participating in the small talk that was going on, or the smack talk either. He had enough on his mind. He didn’t even say anything when Hiyori threw a sandal at his head for his unusual quietude, just dodging it and letting Kensei toss it back over his head. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to see them die again.

Shinji didn’t bother anyone with showing them the entrance, though none of the Vizard questioned it. He did pause to taste the air in the vicinity, and felt that Urahara was already there.

The battle opened up before them in a cacophony as various captains and lieutenants tangled with various espada and their fracción, with Aizen lording over all of it from a vantage point. It was then that Shinji first noticed something strange. Something was clinging to Aizen. For a heart-stopping moment he thought that Aizen had already begun evolving, but no, that’s not what it felt like at all. Aizen’s power levels were where they usually were.

Around him, the others started to give meaningful looks and separate off into separate fights that looks like they could use a helping hand. Shinji knew that they all expected him to start in after Aizen, capitalizing on how he was his former captain, or negating some of his illusory effects with Shinji’s own, and despite it all he was still tempted. He wanted to take Aizen down several pegs, and also wanted a better look at whatever it was that was binding Aizen, but there was a plan. Shaking his head at himself, Shinji sought out Tōsen instead.

Tōsen was fighting on a farther area of the battlefield against two Gotei figures he wasn’t very familiar with, the boy with Kensei’s tattoo and a captain who hadn’t been a captain when he was still there. None of the three were unscathed, and none had noticed Urahara either.

When all of them were down, no one had peeked their way. And yet, it was hard to take the first steps to feeding the jewel. Even remembering that this wouldn’t be the final loop, and that it didn’t matter as much if they died wasn’t enough.

It didn’t matter. Once the hōgyoku realized he was going to feed it, it started pushing hunger at him. He did suppose he’d been using up its power as well. Urahara held up Tōsen’s body when Shinji finally made a move for it.

The experience of sucking someone’s essence out wasn’t one that Shinji thought he could describe. It was something that required the fill-in-the-blanks of poetry, and he’d never been a very strong poet. It was strangely clinical, for all that he was knuckle deep in Tōsen’s soul and kneading it into new shapes. He thought that that was a kindness, so maybe that was why it did it that way. Aizen probably preferred to make them feel it, given his histories.

He’d feared it would feel good, and he still thought it would if he let it. It wouldn’t hurt, though. He wondered if that was the hōgyoku’s doing on his behalf, or just an all-too-humane urge to not want to experience more pain than absolutely necessary. Shinji had been a Shinigami for hundreds of years, fought thousands of hollows and occasionally other beings. He didn’t like pain, but it was familiar enough.

When he came to after, the fallen Shinigami were sputtering at him, keeping distance only because of the even-keeled menace that was Urahara at his back. “I’m done here,” Shinji told him. Rasped, more like. The dimensions of his body felt strange, blurry at the edges. And then Urahara laid a hand on his shoulder, and it settled.

“Good. Are you ready for the next?”

A false courtesy, but a pleasant one. “Of course.”

Shinji barely watched the battlefield as it flew by, focusing on following the trailing edge of Urahara’s haori. Soon enough, he was in front of another nearly-dead arrancar, with Urahara at his back, and his edges blurred again as he fed it again to the hōgyoku. He could feel the energy rise within it as it broke the bonds of the soul, and reformed thinner ones to the conglomerate of the jewel. He thought it felt more like Hell than anything, for all that it wasn’t as permanent or a sanctioned part of the reincarnation cycle.

There was a third, and a fourth, the last one the Primera, and Shinji let the hōgyoku feed and feed, glutting itself on these souls, and clung to his fading sense of self. He had the sense that if his edges blurred too far out, the jewel would consume him, and within he couldn’t hope to retain much in the way of power or identity, let alone be able to harm Aizen. He hoped that this would be enough.

But for all that the battle could feel like it took an age, they usually didn’t run very long, and soon enough there were few others on the battlefield still standing. Aizen hadn’t been paying them much attention. Surprisingly little, Shinji thought. Had Urahara done something? Or had he? Somewhere in the space between eternity and nothingness, the hōgyoku in his wrist had begun to change him. He hadn’t thought it would be that fast, but maybe he should have known better. He wasn’t quite sure what the strings that went between so many of the souls on the battlefield were, but he did know that he hadn’t been able to see them before.

And then Aizen was settling in front of them, somehow unable to see the glowing blue dot of his wrist, monologuing like it was any other loop. Shinji didn’t listen. He was more focused on how Aizen seemed absolutely cocooned in those strings. And with how two of those strings went out to himself and Urahara.

“It’s time,” Urahara murmured. And it was. Even as Aizen kept on talking. Shinji stepped up to Urahara’s left side and transformed Sakanade. Aizen didn’t have time to react as the blade sliced them both and the world began to deteriorate.

* * *

_Loop Twelve_

Shinji spent the bulk of the next loops feeding, trusting Urahara at his back. They ended up compromising as they go on each winning about as many times as the other. Shinji didn’t tell the other Vizards at the start of every loop, mostly because they didn’t have time for the ensuing morality crisis. When Shinji was out of it during the fight, which happened less and less intensely as time went on and he found his footing, Urahara still led him only to powerful arrancar and did not try to feed in fallen friends, even if it would be faster. Shinji insisted when, in the next loop, he realized that with the Primera bound to the hōgyoku, his soul couldn’t also be an espada, and there was an arrancar he hadn’t seen at any of the previous battles sporting the number two.

In loop after that, and presumably this one too, all the espada and fracción were new faces. It was strange, in that Shinji wasn’t used to things changing when he used his bankai, but it seemed rather small in the grand scope of these things. The espada seemed to be more replaceable to Aizen than Tōsen at least; as much as no one seemed to know what had happened to him, he hadn’t suddenly been replaced by another traitor Shinigami.

Moreover, as the hōgyoku fed on the strongest soul conglomerates they could find, the strings had turned from thin things that Shinji sometimes couldn’t even sense into silk ropes he could trace by reiatsu-feel and not just visuals. Useful, with how many of them went back to Aizen. He was pretty sure that the strings were representations of bonds between souls. Most were small, and not some mystical romantic thing better off left in Lisa’s novels, but they were revealing nonetheless.

Urahara was holding down one of the new espada when Shinji found him, a round figure with a half-mask that looked like it had once been a beak. They had the timing down pat, and Benihime’s net retreated just a breath before Shinji was on the espada, and the world blurred familiarly.

When the world reasserted itself, Shinji opened his senses to find where the next arrancar was. Idly, he scratched at the thin soul-cord that stretched between him and Aizen, only to find that it was fraying. That was new. He hacked at it a little more, and soon enough it fell away. He couldn’t feel anything, and he hoped Aizen didn’t notice.

Two more espada later, they were again surrounded by the dead and the dying, and the sounds of the Gotei fighting themselves under Aizen’s influence. It was only then that Shinji began to guess what he had done. While he couldn’t have stopped it, he could _see_ that the person the kid captain was sticking a sword into was not, in fact, Aizen, but was a Gotei lieutenant.

Frowning, he turned to Urahara and pointed. “What do you see when you look over there?”

Urahara followed his finger. “Hitsugaya-san is fighting what appears to be Aizen, as usual. Why?”

“Try now,” Shinji said, and cutting the thinner of the two threads connecting Urahara and Aizen. The thicker wouldn’t budge, but Urahara blinked and muttered in surprise.

“It’s progressing then.”

“Yeah. Hopefully not too much longer.”

“Hmm.”

Shinji didn’t know how much longer this supernaturally-induced clearheadedness and reiatsu bolstering would continue, but he was not looking forward to having to come down from it. It was going to be worse than the one time with the drugs.

* * *

_Loop Thirteen_

Before Urahara got there, Shinji tried to cut the cords between the Vizard and the hollows in their souls. They didn’t cut more than a little fraying, and the others were pained when they tried to pull out their masks in battle, but that moment of hesitation cost Rose his life. He didn’t check on the others after that, this loop. He didn’t want to know.

Urahara doesn’t say anything, but Shinji won’t try again.

* * *

_Loop Fourteen_

Shinji thought he still should be shaken when he sat at the edge of the dome once again, having sent the Vizard in without him. He wasn’t, but only because he was so exhausted with all of it. A risk that came with his bankai, although he’d once figured he’d die of reiryoku exhaustion before he got to this point. Anyway, with the mess he’d made of the last go around, this wasn’t going to be their last time around the wagon, and he didn’t have the space to grieve them if they died again.

It was only moments before Urahara showed up, the packed dirt barely stirring under his flash-step.

“Are we going in?” Shinji asked, when Urahara made no move to follow him closer.

“The arrancar have stopped doing much to power the hōgyoku the way they used to, haven’t they?”

“What do you mean?”

Urahara fiddled with his hat, pulling it down to shade his eyes. “When we started feeding it, you were able to draw on significantly higher amounts of power relatively quickly. I noticed it both with your bankai, but hasn’t your kidō also been stronger, and even your shikai? And the soul-strings. But you haven’t made much progress with cutting them since Aizen’s shikai, and the ones that bind Aizen’s soul and the hōgyoku in his possession are much stronger. Furthermore, as we deplete the arrancar available to be espada, they decrease in power, age, and strength of their internal connections to other hollows. In short, you need more to feed it and we’re only finding less. Therefore, we need other food.”

“What, are you planning on going to Hueco Mundo? Storming Las Noches for the ones Aizen left behind?”

“No.”

Urahara made a very familiar hand movement, and seconds later a senkaimon was beginning to phase into existence off to the left. Shinji was still sputtering when Urahara began to lead the way inside. Shinji followed. Of course he did. 

For someone without a butterfly guide and on the time limit they were, Urahara was taking the whole thing at a leisurely pace, Shinji noted but did not question. Urahara probably wouldn’t tell him anyway. More fun that way, or something. “What are we looking for in Soul Society?”

“A few things. The first isn’t in Soul Society.”

At that, Shinji stopped flat. “Not in Soul Society? Then why are we going there?”

“Because it’s in here. Get ready, I made sure to open the senkaimon as close as I could.”

In the silence that followed, Shinji could hear, not too far off, a _swoosh_ noise that dropped the bottom right out of his stomach. “The Cleaner? You want me to—!”

The Cleaner was starting to become visible, which meant it was far too late to get out of the way. Urahara wasn’t moving besides, which did only leave one option. “Fuck you sideways, Urahara,” Shinji growled, uncovering the hōgyoku. He closed his eyes and hoped to Hell that this wasn’t going to be how he died.

There was a blinding flash that left the world red and flashing all kinds of colors behind Shinji’s eyes, and then it died down. He cracked his open as soon as he felt like he could, only to find that he still existed, and Urahara still existed, and that the Cleaner was nowhere to be seen.

“It’ll regenerate in a week, of course.” Urahara smiled at him. Not just an eye smile either. If pressed, Shinji would have said that in that moment Urahara read somewhere between satisfaction and awe. It gave him a tiny bit of pause to know he’d put it there.

“Tell me next time! I would have said yes!”

“But the look on your face was so much fun!”

Okay, not so much pause. Shinji growled, jumping forward with even more speed than he usually could, and grabbed at Urahara. For his part, Urahara laughed, and led Shinji on a merry chase through the rest of the Dangai tunnels. They emerged on the other side a much more relaxed bunch, and Shinji almost got to forget about the battle for a minute as he tripped on the door that was deliberately just too high off the ground.

“So, where are we going?” Shinji asked, breathless.

“The Twelfth, of course!”

“Of course,” Shinji muttered, keeping his senses open as he followed unfamiliar paths through familiar landscapes. He’s long known about the secret ways through the Seireitei, being older than many of them, but he’d never had much cause to go to the Twelfth this way. It was educational.

Once they got into the Twelfth’s main building, misdirection seemed more the name of the game. The highest ranking officer was an embattled third-seat, whose reaction to seeing Urahara was to sigh, place a pile of keys on a nearby table, and walk away.

“Ah, Akon,” Urahara smiled as he picked them up, a small upturn of the lips that better fitted the ready state they’d both adopted. That smile widened when he heard a ruckus in the opposite direction to where they were heading.

“You knew him?”

“I rescued him. It’s too bad how Mayuri’s been treating him, because he was quite the useful child. If Mayuri does not survive, I would think he could be quite the useful Captain as well.”

Shinji hummed, ending the conversation. There was a lot to look at in the Twelfth, but—“What are we looking for, specifically?”

“We’re almost there.”

They continued on, deeper. The air began to grow more sterile and oppressive, and more of the doors were marked with bindings that were varied in all ways except their strength. It was one such door that Urahara stopped at. He touched the binding, and it peeled right off the wall to admit them.

Inside was an artefact, or a set of artefacts, that he didn’t recognize. If he’d seen them anywhere else, he’d expect that they were some kind of Shihōin ritual item, not something he should be finding in a mad scientist’s stomping ground, and he said so.

“Yes,” Urahara confirmed. “This is what was used to contain the Sōkyoku the last time it was used. Yoruichi was not pleased to hear it had ended up in Mayuri’s hands; I believe that he was ordered to attempt to make it useable once more. Perhaps it would have been a weapon used against Aizen.”

“Would it have worked?”

“No. And if they had come to Yoruichi or I, they would have been told so. The relic is made so that a Shihōin must unseal it, and Yoruichi wouldn’t do that for them. And it wouldn’t work against Aizen for the same reason that we’re here now—it would only feed the hōgyoku.”

Shinji took a step backwards. “And that’s not too much power?”

“I think it’s proven necessary. Don’t you?”

And Urahara could be a bastard, but he wasn’t saying anything Shinji didn’t already know. “Fine. But do we need a Shihōin?”

“Yoruichi taught me a few tricks, and left a few gifts. She was more use distracting Aizen, but she knew we were coming and prepared for it. Now, get ready.”

Shinji gritted his teeth and braced himself as he felt Urahara do _something,_ and there was a new bond, paper thin, between him and the artefact. And then—heat. It was like being too close to Yamamoto when he was really going for it, except a hundred times more so. The fire coalesced into the form of a bird, he saw that much before he closed his eyes against it.

This time, he _felt_ the hōgyoku consume it. It took a minute that could be an age, longer than the Cleaner because while the Cleaner could also destroy souls it didn’t really take them hostage. The Sōkyoku held a bond to every soul it had ever consumed, and as it fell to his jewel he could feel those bonds break and reassemble within it. There were every kind of soul in there—Plus, Hollow, Hellbound, and Living. It came to him in a flash that this more balanced Feeding—there were even some powerful Quincies in there, he could tell—would do much more to help than the same amount of powerful arrancar.

The moment lasted so long that he wasn’t sure he’d survive it, and just that moment longer, before it broke, and Shinji opened his eyes again, blinking away the stars. Again, he was met to Urahara’s satisfaction, though he could only read that face obliquely as the man was already putting away the relic properly.

“Was that it, then?” Shinji rasped. “I don’t know anything else like that here.”

“Just because you don’t know it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Urahara gestured for him to step back, and Shinji did, into the hallway. Urahara followed, and sealed the door before turning back the way they came.

Shinji didn’t move to follow. “Tell me what else we’re walking into.”

Urahara gave him a measuring glance, which was actually borderline offensive after all of this, but gave in. “It’s something of the Soul King’s. It’s not really meant for this sort of thing, but with the scope of the threat Aizen presents, it is better to be safe.”

“What kind of object?” Shinji asked, but he also started walking, this time side by side with Urahara.

“I believe it was once part of his weapon, but most information about the Soul King has been long lost since he was sealed. I do know that it is quite powerful and is the right kind of thing to feed the hōgyoku.”

“Fine.”

They made their way out of the Twelfth quickly enough, and the open air smelled sweeter for the ash they’d left behind. It was only after they landed at their next stop that Shinji found out that he’d pushed ahead of Urahara, even though he didn’t know where they were going. It made him feel self-conscious, and he took the time to look around and pretend he wasn’t waiting for Urahara and pretend that only one of them knew the way.

Their path wasn’t long and winding like the Twelfth, but it also wasn’t quite racing at them either. A shard of metal, the edge of a long-broken blade perhaps, was easily retrievable from the bottom of a pool.

“Ready?” Urahara asked.

“Yeah.” And he knew he was, just as he knew he was supposed to enter into the pool and push the shard into the jewel. He knew that the power he’d consumed had strengthened the jewel so that it would not break. He knew it would still sink in, and he’d have to ride out the wave of power until it was consumed. And yet, he did still wonder at the tiny string, even thinner than the last, that ran between Urahara and the shard, as well as how Urahara had ever even learned about the thing.

And then he knew nothing except the making and unmaking of the Soul King, as it battled and then harmonized with the hōgyoku, merging with the bit of reiatsu-sensitive metal around his wrist as it did.

Time strangely did not go away this time. Shinji was excruciatingly aware of the minutes as they passed with nothing more than the sounds of Urahara’s steady breathing a few steps away. He clung to that when he could sense it, until he realized that that was all he was sensing. He opened his eyes back to the real world, and the knowledge that he could cut any bond he needed to or wanted to now. He had the power.

“Urahara.”

“Are you okay?” There was real concern in that voice. It made him smile.

“Just fine. I think that’s enough. Do you know how things are going back at the battle with Aizen?”

“Yoruichi hasn’t said anything. I’ll ask.”

Shinji agreed and opened his senses, trying to pinpoint what had changed. He hadn’t gotten as much a boost from feeding on anything since the first time, and he dearly hoped it was enough. If it wasn’t, he couldn’t think of anything that would be.

And there, on the edge of his senses, a senkaimon opened, to two very familiar reiatsu signatures. On reflex, he grabbed Urahara with one hand, and Sakanade with the other.

“Aizen’s here,” Shinji growled. He felt the signature moving in their direction and didn’t hesitate, activating Sakanade and slashing them both, hopefully for the last time.

* * *

_Loop Fifteen_

As soon as he woke up, Shinji knew that this go around was different. He and Urahara had made his hōgyoku about as powerful as he ever would be able to. If he messed up here, he didn’t think he would ever get it right.

Of course, that was all a tad dramatic, he reminded himself, shaking out of it. If he screwed the timing, or everyone got killed, then he could still go back and try again. There was no reason why not, except for the way that that was really unhealthy for his mind, which was something he was long past caring about at this pwoint.

This time, he strode out to meet the other Vizards and allowed himself to look at them like people as he explained that he’d been working on something with Urahara to take down Aizen, and that as far as they could tell it was the only way to actually beat him with the powers he had. He was, of course, met with objections and questions. He refused to weather them for long, mostly because they were running short on time if he was going to meet up with Urahara before they all went inside. This, too, he told them, and they eventually agreed, with some disgruntlement.

He didn’t tell them about the hōgyoku. At worst, that was a conversation they could all have once Aizen was really dead for good, or at least sealed beyond recognition. He _had_ seen what Urahara was about, after all.

The long-familiar path to the dome passed by without incident, and Urahara was there waiting for them, Yoruichi, Tessai, and Isshin in tow.

“What’s going on inside?” Shinji asked, as soon as they got close enough.

“The fights between the lieutenants and such guarding the pillars and the fracción are still ongoing. The espada are not fighting yet, so it’s hard to say what their skills are, exactly. That’s where most of you will be most useful—keeping them out of the way. Although if you could also draw Ichimaru Gin out from Aizen’s sphere, it would be appreciated. He’s sneaky and prone to making trouble.”

“And what about Aizen? Shinji said you’d been working on something for him,” Mashiro asked.

“Shinji and I will take care of him.” Urahara replied, in a tone that shut down further conversation. And then spun and left before anyone else could say anything. Shinji rolled his eyes and followed, gesturing for his friends to come with.

The battlefield wasn’t so beat up yet, and no one was dead, which was good. It was doable to use their knowledge of the space to hide the large group coming in, since they weren’t going for long. None of the espada were familiar this time, which was a potential problem Shinji wasn’t going to worry about. They were outnumbered; as long as he took away Kyōka Suigetsu’s effects, that was probably going to be fine. People seemed to hold up well enough the first time, if his memory served.

Shinji felt the metal bracelet form and reform into different short blades as they watched for the best time to make their move. Aizen and Gin were still being contained by Yamamoto, but the various espada were moments away from beginning their individual fights. And then one did, glowing so brightly that they all had to look away, lest they be blinded. Sunshine powers, that was new.

The other espada joined in as well, one whose eight spider limbs grew claws, because who cared for anatomical correctness or the way different species worked? Clearly not the Soul King. Spiders were notorious for poor eyesight, so perhaps there was something to the way the espada worked together to create more of a melee mess of a battle than the one-on-one of the first loop. He almost missed the way the third espada broke up into a swarm of some kind of bug, cicadas maybe. Almost, until he had to shake off the mental influence from the noise they were making. Simple enough now that he had the hōgyoku’s power, though he thought he would have managed anyway.

He felt more than saw the others join in the battle, cautiously and protecting each other’s back, and occasionally one of the shinigami’s. Kensei was always going to be too soft on that boy with his tattoo, probably. It was cute, but it would be more cute after the battle. He hoped.

But that wasn’t what was keeping his focus. He’d killed Wonderweiss (he’d learned the kid arrancar’s name!) with the hōgyoku, but Aizen just came up with another arrancar with a similar capacity for neutralizing Yamamoto specifically. He hadn’t bothered kill that one—neither it nor Wonderweiss had been all that powerful compared to the espada, their powers had just been specifically tailored. Besides, having Yamamoto out of the battle wasn’t a terrible thing in this case.

His grip on Sakanade’s blade tightened as he saw Aizen emerge from the barrier. Urahara moved, and he knew that he was going for Gin. He focused as he drew it up to cut the thread that marked him for Aizen’s shikai. This time, it cut like it was made out of cheese and he caught the trailing end before it fell out of reach. This was the bigger test. He reached through the soul-thread to Aizen’s shikai, and intentionally used the element of the hōgyoku that was the Sōkyoku to cut the bonds between his shikai and all its victims at the source.

That was the one big concession he and Urahara had agreed to for the sake of their friends. If they were never pushed to turn on one another, perhaps they would all survive. The rest was entirely for Aizen’s sake.

Urahara put up the first barrier to slow Aizen down and distract him while Shinji made himself contain multitudes. He had a moment to hope that that meant Gin was down for the rest of the battle before it fully hit him. He knew he was pulling too hard, the colors of the jewel flashing behind eyes he wasn’t sure he could open, but for a short, interminable moment, he had wrapped Aizen in the timeless power of the Cleaner.

Urahara was doing something else, he couldn’t quite sense what, but it did help give him the time to aim the Sōkyoku’s might at the pulsing knot that bound Aizen and his hōgyoku together.

They fought back. Of course, they were more ready for it this time. Aizen had long been using his hōgyoku as a transmutation element, so perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that he reacted to Shinji’s invasion by trying to alter him out of being a threat. He backed away, screeching, as Aizen tried to twist him into non-existence, and then rallied.

Feeding on Aizen’s hōgyoku wasn’t like any other experience he’d had to date. There was the still-soul-alike bit of his brain that was gibbering about autocannibalism, but the vast majority of him felt like he was containing multitudes by the barest of strings, ready to snap at the seam. He had a whole dimension inside his soul. Not Hell, or Hueco Mundo, or even Soul Society. Something new. Grander than he imagined or hoped for. It made him fear, even as it satisfied him. It felt like it was pulling him into new shapes just as surely as he was pulling at it.

And then, all at once, something was stopping him. The Sōkyoku within him screeched with anger at the stolen meal, but it did give him an opportunity to pull back to himself, inch by painful inch.

Urahara had his hand on Shinji’s shoulder when he came to.

“Be careful. You were losing yourself,” he warned.

“Heh. Thanks.”

Shinji looked back towards Aizen. He looked—bad. Drained. Which made sense, he supposed. They had come with the dint of experience prepared for exactly what he was throwing at them this time. It was hard to be otherwise. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t putting up a better fight than they would have hoped, but they were prepared for it.

Aizen was about to start talking, when Shinji noticed the flicker behind him of an opening garganta. It was time for them to make their next move.

Of course, AIzen noticed Ichigo coming from farther away than the boy would have hoped, but nearer than it used to be. Still, the way he blasted Ichigo back was good cover for the way Shinji sprang forward, hand wrapped around the mixed weapon of the soul king’s weapon and Urahara’s reiatsu metal. Aizen tried to block the slash, but the weapon cut right through Aizen’s blade, and to the hōgyoku. It was much diminished from what it was but not insignificant, sitting somewhere between half and a third of the power it had before. Shinji knew better than to trust that, though. It was active, and that meant it would feed. He couldn’t let it.

Shinji stumbled back a few steps, refusing to listen to this second voice asking him to give in, to empower himself to change the world around him, and feeding it to the jewel he’d been carrying for so long. And then, when he’d taken everything out of it, he shattered the crystalline casing between his hands, releasing the symbol as much as the souls that had once been trapped within.

Aizen was making some kind of groaning noise. Shinji looked back to see that his face was almost unrecognizable twisted with anger as it was, and that he couldn’t seem to stand. Ichigo looked somewhat shellshocked, blade dripping, and Shinji thought he might be responsible for the way Aizen was mostly cut into two halves. Fitting, after all this. He was going to step forward, finish the job, when Urahara did instead.

He had to admit he felt a little surprised that Urahara had killed him instead of sealing him as planned, but then he’d been planning on doing the same. Dead people often looked smaller, he’d found, but Aizen seemed much the same as he always had been, bigger than his height, always that bit more than he seemed. Even the blood looked like more than should be properly coming out of a body. Perhaps just because it was so spread around…

A sharp pain brought him back to himself. He hadn’t noticed how much the backs of his eyelids looked like crystal until he remembered that it shouldn’t be, eyes flying open to see Urahara pinching his skin just above his hōgyoku. “It’s too much,” he gasped.

“Either survive it or I’ll have to kill you.” There was regret in that voice, but no uncertainty, and Shinji took some measure of comfort from that. He could trust that Urahara wouldn’t let him become another Aizen after all this.

He knew that this was too much for him. All of it was too much, really, but this last final bit would consume him and change him to suit its purposes, which was definitely going to be more evil than he was willing to go. So no, he couldn’t keep the power. But he’d also destroyed its former casing, which he had to admit hadn’t been doing it any favors. Luckily, he did have something better.

The soul king’s weapon could contain this, he thought, and the shifting reiatsu metal would help the part of this power that ached for change. He shoved every smidge he could find of the power from Aizen’s jewel into the small blade, until it was almost too powerful to touch. He also pushed in the Sōkyoku, though he hesitated at the Cleaner. That one felt right, somehow.

He felt immediately better once the worst of it was out of his system, which also meant that he could not keep the blade. There were a few options he could think of for it, but almost without consciously thinking about it he reversed it, and offered it to Urahara.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen the man so poleaxed. If it were anyone less deliberate than Urahara, he’d have said that he only accepted the offering on instinct. Still, a weight came off of his entire body the moment it was gone.

He watched as Urahara retreated in himself. Ten seconds passed, and then twenty, and by the minute mark Shinji was starting to get worried. He pinched Urahara,same as he did for him, and the knife came up to slash him. Slow enough for him to get away, although he wasn’t sure it would cut him if he didn’t want it to until he got rid of the thing in his arm. “Don’t do that,” he admonished.

“But I could fix it! The worlds—I could Balance them—” Urahara exhaled, breath catching as he shook his head rapidly and repeatedly. “No, you’re right. That can wait for clearer heads and better times.”

“I knew I trusted you for a reason.” Shinji cracked a smile that stuck around long enough to see Ichigo defending them both with a getsuga tenshō from a stray attack from the espada fight that was apparently still ongoing. Or maybe that was not such a surprise. Time within the hōgyoku’s world was likely quite subjective.

The soul-threads were still visible, and Shinji watched one formed, thick for its newness, between the other hōgyoku and Urahara. But that wasn’t the only thing—“That’s your weapon, isn’t it?”

“What?” Urahara looked down at the blade in hand, and chuckled. “Mine? No. How could a simple shopkeeper lay claim to part of the Soul King’s weapon?”

Shinji’s eyes narrowed and he focused in on the thread, even as Urahara obfuscated and redirected. “I’m not sure how you did it, but its definitely yours.”

Urahara sighed, dropping a bit of the act. “Fine, its mine to use, for certain things. The rest of the story isn’t particularly suited for a battlefield. Which we should probably clear, anyway.”

Shinji wagged a hand at him, because that conversation was _not_ over, and looked out at the rest of the battlefield. There was Ichigo, checking on an unconscious Gin. Shinji supposed it wasn’t really his fight anyway. As for the Gotei, most if not all of the people who came were still kicking, despite the scattered fighting that was still going on between the Espada and the Shinigami, although it didn’t look like that was going to last for much longer. Which meant explanations, maybe, if he and Urahara didn’t use the opportunity to get out of there.

None of the Vizards were dead, and Hachi hadn’t even lost an arm this time. They had all survived Aizen in the end. There was something profoundly and bitterly satisfying about that.

“What about the hōgyokus?” Shinji asked Urahara. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t want this. Still don’t. It was useful for killing Aizen, but I don’t want to live like this.”

“Who would you trust with it then?”

“I don’t know.”

* * *

Shinji and Urahara did make their dramatic escapes, mostly by using ‘nearly limitless power’ to make it hard for anyone to find them as they snuck out the back exit. Tessai still nodded at them on their way out, which was…typical, Shinji supposed. Tessai was just that kind of person. He wouldn't say anything though, he was sure of it.

They went back to the Vizard Warehouse because the Shoten was still in Soul Society, and fell into a dead sleep on Shinji’s bed. They woke up hours later when the other Vizards came in, after being press-ganged into helping with cleanup because ‘the Shinigami didn’t care about putting the town back together right, so we _had_ to’. It all made him feel impossibly fond.

They all dropped off to sleep immediately, and Shinji brought Urahara outside to watch the sun set. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized that he didn’t really believe he’d get to see one again. Certainly if Aizen had won, he probably would be too busy being mind controlled to notice. It was surprisingly oppressive, to know they had won. Already, Shinji could feel the weight of the next steps they had to take pushing his shoulders into the concrete. He was still tired, and done.

Urahara settled an arm around him, and Shinji closed his eyes as he let the sensation comfort him. The strand between him and Urahara hadn’t been very thick to begin with, he’d thought, even if he hadn’t seen it before all of this. It couldn’t have been, with how hesitant they both were around each other. But now there was a thick cable that felt like security, and trust, and knowledge.

“I know what we do next,” Urahara murmured into his hair, and told him.

Shinji held out his arm. It didn’t hurt as Urahara took the knife to it, separating the hōgyoku from his flesh. It might have fought, might have even won, but that would have involved reconsuming the other, and that was just not on. Besides, he wasn’t destroying it just yet. It reformed in his cupped hands, taking on the shape of a jewel instead of just the appearance of glimmer and structure. It was made of souls and power, and it begged him to use it, to consume anything that stood in his way from the top.

It was not in its nature to be consumed, but it would withstand being changed. And so these souls cried out in one resonating note as Shinji presented this power to Urahara’s hōgyoku, and felt Urahara guide that wellspring of power out, and into the world, visualizing as they did the places where the three worlds broke down.

Hell, where was meant for all the souls too worn down to reincarnate properly. It had originally been meant as a place of healing, a third alternate to Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, a refuge, and a place where these souls could be reforged into the new souls that populated both the Living World and the Dead Realms. Too much neglect and its use as a forgotten dumping ground for experimentation had turned it into a traumatizing, miasmic mess. It would take more than restoring it to its former state to fix the harms that had been done to the souls that yet survived it, but it was a solid beginning, and;

The Dangai, or the spaces between where lived exiles and those who feared all the worlds so badly that the truest idea of solitary confinement felt better than attempting to survive the worst the worlds had to offer. The spaces where memories with no names could gather, and names with no memories could dance around them like they had nothing left to lose, like life was always so meaningless. These squamous and fragile things would not have survived Aizen, but it would survive them, and;

Hueco Mundo, which had not always been such a barren wasteland. Sure, its inhabitants were those who, with or without their own consent, had traded humanity for power, for even the weakest hollow was stronger than the weakest plus soul. It was often the hollows that would do harm or see harm done that won, but wasn’t the same true of any society where there were few consequences for the actions of those at the top? Shinigami propaganda did the rest, and between the two it was easy for the landscape to scrape itself to nothing, and difficult to make a good life there. But it hadn’t always been that way, and it didn’t always have to be, and;

Soul Society, which had become nearly as bad as Hueco Mundo, except that its least powerful did not strictly require food or have power, and had even less ability than those less powerful hollows to seek greater fortune in the wilds beyond their stinking, crowded villages, that made the best of what little they had but still had oh so little, so much less than their environment afforded them. How could they not be disenfranchised? More, how could they heal without the kind of bloody regime change they had been avoiding thus far? How could they empower the populace without forcing the Shinigami to take it all away from them, and;

The Hōgyokus themselves, filled with souls that had once been bound in great networks across all the worlds, everywhere the Soul King could reach and some places It couldn’t, which at the end would break free and be restored to all of their places in the stars. These souls filled the veins that Urahara and Shinji had just unblocked, singing their freedoms and pushing souls all along to their proper places. The Cleaner whistled through the Dangai. Arrancar found themselves in a new Hueco Mundo. Several Rukongai districts found themselves with doubled populations and the resources to deal with it. Multiple clans were left shaking the fog out of their skins. Even Aizen’s soul woke up, no longer as Aizen, in the closed system that once was called Hell, since ripped apart and bound as it was it would never have reincarnated properly.

The jewel in Shinji’s hand shattered as its power left it, and he let it. The knife in Urahara’s hand didn’t react as dramatically, but the soul-threads hadn’t left him yet, and Shinji knew it was the same.

A fitting end, he supposed. A final fuck-you to the Shinigami. Plus, he got to have Urahara look at him with that soft look, like he’d surprised him with something he’d never thought to have. Both of those were worth it.

That’s not where the story ends, of course. Frolicking into the sunset only works until your legs give out, because the sunset was not actually somewhere reachable. Giving the world a head start wouldn’t mean shit if they didn’t stop people from messing it all back up, and neither of them were the kind of person who fed on that, really.

Lucky for them, they had friends. And, after the sunrise that Shinji stayed up to watch, Urahara sleeping right next to him, he would read them in and get them started. He patted Sakanade with one hand, and nearly swapped to Urahara before he thought better of poking the sleeping assassin-maybe-Soul-King-Something. They’d won. It was now up to them to live it.


End file.
